1877 a good year for Beer

So to start off after the Alligator Gorge we spent the night in a little parking area beside the road. Plenty of birdlife to keep us entertained, and had a very quiet night.

The thoughts where that next morning we would do some walks around Mt Remarkable, so in we drove about 10km to a pretty little place called Melrose. We finally found the trails to find they were exclusively mountain bike trails, the only one that wasn’t was old and scratched out.

1877, a good year for Beer

So after yesterday leaving us feeling achy, we decided not to and did the local museum an 1870 police station and court house. It took couple of hours then it was lunch time so we headed out to Jacka brothers brewery restored from when it was operating in 1877

Awesome place so full off character and not to mention a mountain as a backdrop!

Can’t recommend the porter and stout nearly enough, if your around head there now!

After that it was into camp another 10 km away, another roadside camp

Battery Resuscitation 101

Next morning while still dark we discovered that we had no power, the house battery was dead. A quick panic when you can’t find your way out the loo, but we checked and Little Bus’s vehicle battery was still good.so at least we could move on.

Checked a few things and discovered, that with no power, no lights, no fridge, no pump to get water from the tanks, no flushing of the loo and even the battery monitor screen was dead.

We had gas for cooking, but we had drained our drinking water jerry can the night before!

Ok so we had charged a few things, watched TV and had the inverter charging the laptop for about an hour ( me thinks that did it)

Ok so drive to see if we can get some charge in….. nope still dead but with the engine on at least we could see the monitor, so knew what was happening…. or not happening as was the case.

We drove 45km to the nearest town and while Jo drove I googled this smart battery troubleshooter, seems that with a smart battery (itechworld 120 aH) if it drains too far it goes into safe mode.

And it will just sit there till you restart it via some complicated ritual involving batteries, chargers, meditation, ritualistic sacrifice to the battery gods, removal off knuckle skin, sweat blood and tears, and the occasional curse.

Or you could do what we ended up doing, remove all terminals, start the engine, reconnect the battery while its running and hey presto life is present.

So after that we literally drove all day. Until the battery status was green then using solar and engine we got it fully charged.

Driving, driving, driving

So we visited a few small towns, and did lastly did a small walk in Telowie gorge. Then it was into the national park to our camp-site at Baroota ruins.